The confidence to start a real conversation

About the institution

UKRAID Valencia is a nonprofit founded to support Ukrainian refugees arriving in Spain, serving hundreds of people each week. Among its programs is a Spanish immersion course built for Ukrainian women with children – a group for whom language is the doorway to work, independence, and belonging, and for whom fixed class schedules are hardest to keep. Demand speaks for itself: applications for the program far exceed the places available (150 requests for 10 places each cycle).

The challenge

For refugees, language isn’t a development goal – it’s the condition for rebuilding a life. Employment outcomes improve dramatically with conversational Spanish, yet state-provided classes have dwindled, and a few teacher-led hours a week can’t carry someone from zero to conversation on their own. UKRAID needed the practice between classes: flexible, self-paced, and focused on speaking – because its learners are mothers fitting study around caregiving, not students with free evenings.

Why Talkpal

UKRAID built its immersion model in three layers: a teacher leads classes each week, Talkpal provides unlimited speaking practice whenever learners have a moment, and local elderly volunteers at Valencia’s active-ageing centres offer real conversation across generations. Talkpal is the layer that’s always available – judgment-free practice at each learner’s level, on a phone, in the gaps a caregiver’s day allows. The speaking confidence built there is what learners carry into their volunteer conversations, and from there into daily life.

“Talkpal is a hugely important tool in our language immersion program, giving our students an opportunity to practice Spanish any time they want, build the confidence they need to start real conversations and form connections with local people, which is essential for long term integration.”

– Arny Plaut, Co-founder, UKRAID Valencia

The outcome

The program’s model works: learners reach conversational Spanish within six months, ready to speak with the people around them and actively participate in local life. For UKRAID, Talkpal makes that intensity possible without adding teaching hours – and the progress its learners make builds the case for growing the program to reach more of the people asking for a place.